Chapter Two
As RAW drew to a close, and the WWE Universe exited the arena after being subjected to yet another twenty minute tirade by the Great One, The Rock, directed at John Cena, his WrestleMania opponent, Cena headed backstage. As he reached the backstage area, instead of having his mind focusing on the insults that Dwayne had hurled at him yet again—as if he could ignore some twenty thousand people yelling "Fruity Pebbles" at him—and the responses that he and Dwayne were throwing at one another, his mind was instead focused on the woman who had captured his attention earlier that evening.
Krys… Just hearing her name was enough to cause his brain to stop working temporarily, and caused goosebumps to rise up and down his arms. For some reason, there was something about the girl that fascinated him, and for the life of him, he couldn't figure out quite what it was. She had no interest in muscle cars, her favorite rock band wasn't Led Zeppelin like his was, and she went out of her way to avoid being the center of attention, unlike the vast majority of the Divas that currently ran roughshod in the WWE. Whatever it was that Krys had going on with her, it was enough to capture his attention and hold it, no matter what it was that he had been doing prior to thinking about her.
Almost as if on cue, Krys appeared in his line of sight, seemingly engrossed in conversation with her best friend and fellow Diva, Alexandra Callaway. Yeah, the fiery little redhead was the child of the Deadman just like her name suggested, but instead of using her last name to gain some status within the company, just like their fellow Diva-in-Crime, Natalie Neidhart, she preferred to earn her way through the ranks.
The differences between Krys and Alexandra were striking: Alexandra was tall and lean, with bright red hair and brilliant green eyes; Krys was shorter and slightly heavier, with skin the color of caramel, dark brownish-black hair with red streaks, and eyes that were a rich brown. Their differences didn't just end there. Krys was more into R&B and a little bit of rap, with the occasional dip into rock and heavy metal, while Alexandra was a pure metalhead through and through. And while Alexandra was currently skipping from town to town with her piece of Scottish eye candy, Drew McIntyre, Krys was currently single and loving it. And not only did Krys love it, but if it were possible, John loved it even more. After all, it left her open for him to try and make a move. But damn if the woman wouldn't give him a chance!
Again, almost as if on cue, almost as if their minds were somehow linked and she knew that he had been thinking about her yet again, Krys turned and locked eyes with him. Her brown eyes sparkled as a grin spread across her face, and Cena couldn't help but grin in return. She was one big, bright ball of sunshine, as far as he was concerned, and he would've loved nothing more than to get lost in her smile forever. Now that he'd been spotted, he couldn't very well sneak off, so he decided to make up his mind and head over to the two girls. In what appeared to be a split second later, he stood in front of Krys and Alex, his hands in his jean pockets. "Hey" was all he said.
Krys smiled again. "That was an interesting promo between you and Rock," she said, "it was pretty badass."
"I don't know," admitted Alexandra, "I got pretty sick of Rock calling you a giant fruity pebble and talking about making you his bitch every three seconds. Honestly, the way he keeps talking about it, I think you might want to watch your ass in the locker room from now on."
The two girls laughed, and Cena grinned in response. "Well, what can I say? Apparently getting his hands on my ass has been on Rock's mind for quite some time now. He wants to shove things in it, stomp it, kick it…I don't think my ass has ever had to endure so much abuse before."
"Make sure you tell him to lube up before inserting anything," said Krys slyly, which caused Cena to grimace, and both her and Alexandra to erupt in another round of laughter, which, to John's immense relief, sounded nothing like the pathetic little giggles that he had to put up with whenever he had been out on a date with someone like Eve or Kelly. "Anyway, all kidding aside, are you going back to the hotel to shower, or are you gonna grab a shower here and just head straight to the hotel?"
"I'm not sure," he admitted, shrugging his shoulders. "I'll probably just do a quick shower here, and then head straight on to the club. What's everyone else doing?"
"Well, the general consensus is that we're all going to go back to the hotel to clean up and stuff," Krys said back, shrugging as well. "I ran into Lexi while you were out in the ring, and she's going with Drew, so I figured I'd just take my car back to the hotel and get cleaned up there, then head out with them. What about you?"
"Well, first and foremost, who's gonna be the designated driver?" he asked back. "And who else is going besides us, Zack, Zigg, and Piggy—I mean Vickie?"
"You're mean," she said, slapping his chest playfully. He simply snorted and gave her a look.
"Oh, I'm mean? What about the one who was raggin' on Eve for her lack of wrestling ability not even two hours ago?"
"Was that me…?" she asked innocently, looking at him with wide, innocent brown eyes. Cena suppressed a laugh, and tried to keep himself from flirting with the girl. She had such a natural chemistry and easygoing personality, that it was hard to keep control of himself around her.
Cena simply chuckled lightly, starting to move around her. "Well, you guys can head back to the hotel; I won't be too much farther behind, I'm just going to grab my gear and meet you guys at your room when I'm ready to go."
"Sure thing," she said, then returned back to Alexandra's side, who nodded once in greeting to John, before they continued on their way to the Divas' locker room. For a moment, Cena watched them, before shaking his head to clear away from his mind the sudden urge to grab Krys and drag her back into the men's locker room with him.
As he walked away, he felt a peculiar sensation sweeping through him: it was almost as if someone were watching him. He thought for a moment, then shook his head; it was a crowded backstage area at the end of a live edition of RAW, of course he was being watched! Shaking his head again at his absurdity, he continued on his way in the opposite direction of where Krys and Alex had gone, heading to the locker room to grab a quick shower before leaving.
That same mysterious, dark figure scowled from the darkness at the interlude between Krys and John Cena. He was grateful that they had gone their separate ways; he would not be held responsible for the things that he wanted to act upon every time he had seen the two of them together.
Just that quickly, a rush of white-hot anger surged through him, coursing through his veins and poisoning his mind even further. Even the thought of that prima donna charlatan of a wrestler being near her sickened him and filled him with a nearly uncontrollable need to destroy something or someone…preferably the one standing in his way. He wanted to protect her, keep her safe from predators like John Cena who preyed on women and used them as his playthings until he grew bored with them.
No. He wouldn't allow the fool to get close to her, get close enough to inject his poison into her, and turn her against him the way he had everyone else. He would save her, by any means necessary. Even if he destroyed himself in the process…as long as it kept her safe and away from him, then it would all be worth it in the end.
This was one battle John Cena wasn't going to win.
"So, little sister, what's up with you and Cena?" Alexandra wondered out loud as soon as they were out of earshot of Cena. She fixed Krys with a sly grin, and watched as her best friend's dusky cheeks turned reddened slightly. "Wait…are you blushing? Oh, this is too good to be true; someone broke through your defenses!"
"Dude, stop!" Krys protested with a laugh, though looking around to make sure that no one was listening. Satisfied that no one was listening in on their conversation, Krys grabbed Alexandra by the arm and steered her the rest of the way into the Divas' locker room, making sure that the door was firmly closed behind them, before wheeling around to face her smirking best friend. "What was all that about?"
"You and Cena, obviously," Alexandra stated patiently, as though Krys were a small child that she had to explain a difficult subject to. "You guys seemed pretty at ease with each other, and I just wanted to know why you never told me you guys were together."
"First off, Cena and I have always been at ease with each other," Krys said impatiently, pinching the bridge of her nose as she explained to her best friend, "he's a cool guy who thinks I'm cool too, and we like to hang out with the same friends; of course we're at ease with each other. And second—wait, what the hell makes you think we're together?"
"Oh come on, Krys, you should see it from an outsider's point of view," Alexandra said back, impatient in her own way. "If you guys aren't dating, then you sure as hell have a funny way of showing it. You blush and start looking like a starry-eyed little kid every time he walks around your way, and he never takes his eyes off of you whenever you're around. In fact, if you'd stopped drooling over him for half a second, you would have noticed that he didn't even seem to notice that I was standing right next to you the whole time you guys were talking."
"Lex, I'm not interested in Cena," she said firmly, marching over to her locker and grabbing her gear bag out, before starting to get undressed.
Alexandra snorted as she did the same, both women climbing out of their ring gear and back into the clothes they wore earlier that day heading into the arena for that night's show. "Yeah, and Drew and I are just casually screwing."
"Okay, I so did not need to hear about that," Krys groaned. Alexandra just smirked knowingly as she pulled her sweater over her head. Finally satisfied that Lexi was temporarily thrown off the subject of her relationship with John, Krys grabbed her gear bag and suitcase, and started toward the door. "Let's get out of here before I'm tempted to wring your neck. I don't feel like having to explain to Vince and Drew and your dad why I murdered you in front of Kelly's locker."
"Bro, do you really have to be so obnoxious that you gotta blare your own CD while we're driving?" Zack yelled over the beat to "Make It Loud" off of his You Can't See Me CD.
"What's the matter with it?" Cena yelled back over the music. "What's the problem with listening to some badass music?"
"Really, John?" Punk chimed in from the passenger seat. Punk's boyfriend, Chris Jericho, was away in Atlanta, working on songs for his new Fozzy album, leaving Punk to fend for himself on the road, something that did not really sit too well with the Straight Edge Superstar. "It's not so much rap that's the problem; it's more that it's your CD you're playing in this car. I won't have my ears polluted with such nonsense." He reached over and jammed his finger into the power button, instantly killing the CD and turning to a random radio station, where Led Zeppelin took the place of the rap. "Ah, now that's music I can endure listening to during a car ride," he said, leaning back against the car and folding his hands in his lap, nodding his head to the beat. John bit down the retort he was going to issue to the two men, and instead returned his attention to getting he and his friends to the club in one piece; due to his tendency to drive like a maniac whenever he gets behind the wheel of a car, he wasn't very popular with some of his fellow Superstars (with the exception of Natalya Neidhart, who, in her own right, had a special place in her heart for speeding down the highway).
Upon finally reaching the club, they were immediately recognized by the bouncer—who was undoubtedly a wrestling fan, and had admitted the girls, Vickie, Ziggler, and Drew earlier—and allowed inside, where the loud music and the large mass of people inside swallowed them up whole once the door closed behind them.
Once they hit the dance floor, John searched around for either a glimpse of Alexandra's flaming red hair, Vickie's spiky black hair, or even Krys' dark brown hair in the crowd. Seeing no sign of either woman, he began to fight his way through the crowd, smiling occasionally at the women who recognized him and tried to coerce him into sharing a dance with them on the floor.
Suddenly, John felt the sting of someone punching him in the arm, and he whipped around, about to demand what the hell the problem was with the person who had hit him, and Punk's face came into view. Punk silently gestured with a tilt of his head somewhere off to their far right, and Cena, following his gaze, finally spotted the girls, Drew, and Dolph off in a corner booth, downing shots and laughing at one another. With a grin on his face, he set off towards them, ready to let his hair down—for lack of a better term—and have some fun.
It had been a while since Krys had been out to have fun with her friends. Usually, whenever the others had gone out, she usually stayed in her room, opting to read or watch whatever was on TV in whatever city they were staying in. Unfortunately for her, it gave her a reputation as a snob or a woman who considered herself better or higher up on the food chain than the rest of the Divas. The thought that girls like Kelly and Eve sat and gossiped about her behind her back about how arrogant and stuck up she was made her laugh, because she knew her abilities for what they were; it certainly wasn't her fault that neither one of them were credible enough in the ring to be taken seriously as wrestlers.
With a smug smirk to herself as she remembered her conversation with John and Zack earlier, Krys went to grab another shot, but her fingers grasped nothing but empty glasses. Looking up, she frowned over at Lexi, only to discover that her friend had skipped off somewhere; Drew's noticeable absence as well led her to realize that they must have disappeared off into some dark corner to make up for lost time, and she rolled her eyes. The two were nearly inseparable, and if it weren't for the fact that Drew had made Alexandra happy after coming into her life and healing her heart following a bad breakup with Sheamus, she would have griped more about him usurping her best friend. As long as he made her happy, she was more than cool with the pair of them being together.
"Lemme guess…in need of more alcohol?" came John's voice, causing Krys to look up. Their gazes collided, and the corners of Cena's mouth tilted upward into a grin, a grin that she couldn't help but return his way.
"How'd you guess?"
"I guess we're so in tune with one another, that I just knew it," he said with another grin. Krys snorted derisively, and Cena got a sheepish grin to his face. "Okay, you caught me; I saw the glasses were all empty, so I screamed on a waitress until she agreed to bring more alcohol over."
He hadn't even finished his sentence, when a waitress had chosen that moment to come over to their table, brandishing a fresh tray that was full of shot glasses. Krys grinned again, reaching for one of the glasses. "How many of those have you had?" he inquired, playfully elbowing Punk out of his way to sit down across from Krys.
She shrugged a shoulder carelessly. "I think maybe one or two," she said, "you should go ask Dolph, Lexi, and Drew—well, you should mainly ask Drew; you know Scotsmen and their liquor." As she finished speaking, she downed the shot in one gulp, wiping her lips on the back of her hand.
"Speaking of Drew and Alex, where are they?"
She waved a hand dismissively off in some random direction. "Here, there…anywhere. Honestly dude, your guess is as good as mine." She then lowered her head, looking sad for a brief second. "I envy them sometimes, you know?"
"Why?"
"Because they're so happy with each other." Before she could continue her thoughts, they both heard a shout of apparent delight. Swiveling around in their seats, they saw Punk jumping to his feet and running past them towards the crowd. A moment later, he came back tangled in the arms of his boyfriend, Chris Jericho. Though they played mind games with one another and beat the hell out of each other on television each and every week, once the cameras were off of them, they adored one another.
Cena stood to his feet to greet Chris, ruffling his spiky blond hair playfully after hugging him. "It's good to see you back, man," he said. "No, seriously, it is. Your princess has been pining without you here." He nodded his head in Punk's direction, earning him the one-fingered salute from the Straight Edge Superstar. "So what have you been up to so far?"
"The usual," Jericho responded, bending down to hug Krys, who, in the midst of Jericho and Punk's reunion, had managed to down two more shots while no one was looking and was now starting to sway a little bit, and looking more and more giggly by the second. "Touring, promoting Fozzy, recording songs for the new album…I've been running the whole gambit. How are things on the road? I hope you're entertaining my fans, Cena; I'd hate to have to come back and steal the spotlight away from you and my precious little Punkers over there."
"Yeah right, as if you could ever—" Punk was about to retort, when he stopped mid-rebuttal. "What did you call me?"
"I called you Punkers," Jericho said back, walking over and wrapping an arm casually around his shoulders. "I came up with it while I was out on the road one night while I was thinking of you, and I thought it was cute, so it stuck." He laughed at the scowl on Punk's face. "What's the matter? You don't like it?"
"Hell no, I don't like it," Punk said, scowling at him, only succeeding in making Jericho laugh harder. Finally, Punk couldn't take it anymore, and laughed alongside him. "Fine, you win. But this is the only time that'll happen."
"Bullshit," Jericho snorted. "You never once complain when I win in the bedroom—"
"—and on that note, I'm going onto the dance floor," said Krys, slamming down her third shot in a row, and slowly getting to her feet. She stumbled a bit, making her friends laugh. When she regained her balance, she flipped them off, bringing them all to laughter once again.
"Damn, Krys, looks like you started the party without me," Jericho commented, pretending to sulk.
Krys simply grinned at him. "Well someone had to try and challenge your status as the party host, and who else could do that better than yours truly?" Just to prove her point, the DJ switched over to the next song, which, ironically enough, happened to be a fast, catchy tune—more than likely something from Beyoncé, Krys mused to herself—and she climbed onto the table, grabbing Jericho and Punk's hands and yanking them up as well and beginning to dance between the two of them in a sensual manner.
Jericho and Punk, men who tended to be rather stingy with the spotlight, conceded defeat that night and danced with their favorite girl, keeping her sandwiched in between the two of them and engaging in some rather interesting dances that put the people on the dance floor to shame. While they danced, bumped, and grinded on the table, Cena watched the three of them on the table with a smile on his face. No matter what it was that had him troubled or got him down in any way, the people he worked with on a near daily basis never failed to cheer him up. And it was the woman in the middle who always brightened up his day, though he doubted she even realized how much he thought about her.
As he stood watching the threesome cavort on the table to hoots and hollers from the rest of their group—never a group to be outdone, Dolph, Vickie, and Zack had all climbed on the table next to theirs and proceeded to do a dance of their own, earning catcalls of their own—Randy had made his way over to John, and nudged him with his shoulder. "Why don't you get up there and dance with her?" he asked in his deep voice.
"Why?" he scoffed.
"Because you like her…?" Randy said patiently, shaking his head at the older man. They had been friends for a long time, ever since their early days as rookies in Ohio Valley Wrestling, and had pretty much considered one another brothers, but to Randy, sometimes John could be impossibly dense about things.
"What makes you think I like her?" Cena asked curiously, his head turned towards Randy, but his eyes still on the woman in the middle of an erotic Jeri-Punk sandwich.
Randy rolled his eyes, resisting the urge to slap his best friend upside the head. Yep, John was incredibly dense. "John, do I really have to explain to you how obvious it is to everyone and their mother that you like her? Seriously, go for it. You couldn't do any worse than Kelly, and everyone's had a turn at her."
"You didn't," John reminded him.
"That's different; I'm married, and I'm not attracted to blond-haired whores." John chuckled, and even Randy managed to crack a smile. "Now, are you going to boot Punk and Jericho's asses off that table and dance with that girl, or am I going to have to do it for you?"
Before Cena could give him an answer, however, the song ended, and the three took bows on the table. "Thank you, thank you; we're available for birthdays, weddings, and bar mitzvahs," Jericho called out as he and Punk hopped off the table, then offered Krys a hand down. "You, my lady, have moves like a cat in heat," he said to the young woman, who blushed. "You're totally welcome to join in on me and Punk anytime you want."
"I might take you up on that someday, if I'm hard up enough," she said back with a sly grin, and Jericho got a wolfish grin to his face too, before being dragged off by a jealous Punk.
As they disappeared into the swarm of dancing figures, Randy nudged John forward with his shoulder. "Get going!" he hissed, before going over to the table and seating himself down next to Alexandra, who had finally returned with Drew from wherever the hell they had disappeared off to.
Somehow, John's feet seemed to not have moved at all, but yet, he found himself standing in front of Krys. "Nice moves up there on that table," he said quietly.
"Thanks," she said back, and they fell into an uncomfortable silence.
"Oh, God, he's goin' down," Randy commented to Lexi, who watched with a pained grimace on her face.
"For both their sakes, I hope not."